This invention relates to a card slot assembly, which is installed in an electronic instrument such as a personal computer and receives a card such as an IC card or a memory card to enable the electronic instrument to access the card for data transmission, for example, data writing and/or data reading. In particular, this invention relates to a card ejection mechanism provided for the card slot assembly to eject the received card from the card slot assembly.
A card slot assembly with a card ejection mechanism is disclosed in JP-B 3200736. The card slot assembly comprises a card receiving portion and can receive a card along an insertion direction through the card receiving portion. The card slot assembly is provided with an ejection plate, a coil spring, a pivot, a locking member and an eject button. The ejection plate is movable along the insertion direction between a locked position and an ejecting position. The coil spring is coupled to the ejection plate and urges the ejection plate to be positioned at the ejecting position. The locking member is an elongated plate and is rotatably supported by the pivot. When the card is received within the card slot assembly, the ejection plate is moved to the locked position by a force caused by the insertion of the card. At that time, the locking member rotates around the pivot in a first rotational direction, and one end of the locking member stops the ejection plate to lock the ejection plate at the locked position, opposing the coil spring. When the eject button is operated, the locking member rotates around the pivot in a second rotational direction reverse to the first rotational direction. Thereby, the locking member unlocks the ejection plate, and the ejection plate is moved to the ejecting position by the coil spring. Therefore, the card is pressed out by the moving ejection plate and is ejected from the card slot assembly.
There is a problem that, if the eject button is operated by mistake, the card is ejected from the card slot assembly even when the card is accessed by the electronic instrument. As a result, the data transmission between the card and the electronic instrument is broken.
JP-A 8-161233 discloses another assembly, which uses a solenoid mechanism for restricting the movement of an eject button when the card is accessed by the electronic instrument. For the ejection of the card, after the solenoid mechanism is forced not to work on the movement of the eject button, for example, by cutting the power supply to the solenoid mechanism, the eject button is operated.